CAMPBELL WOOD
By Al Sarrantonio
First Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press & Macabre Ink Digital
Copyright 2011 by Al Sarrantonio
Cover design by David Dodd
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Beware the wood.
Beware the thing of root and bone.
—Anonymous
PROLOGUE
GLASGOW,SCOTLAND
WINTER 1923
Preserve me, Earth, Taemon Gaye whispered under her breath, pulling her linen wrap closer around her thin shoulders and around the bundle she bore, to keep out the deadly cold.
She moved silently through the damp streets. She knew she must hurry; the sun would be up in an hour and if she was not safely at her destination by then, all would be lost.
She was a small woman, and the cobbled roads were alien to her bare feet. Her smallness was highlighted by the slightness of her frame and by the porcelain petiteness of her facial features. In certain lighting she resembled not so much a human being as a cat or stoat in human form. Her cheekbones were high and delicate, and there was a darkness to her complexion that bordered on the negroid. She was quick as a wood animal; she could, by standing deathly still, blend into any landscape and elude any pursuer. She had done so many times in the hills, when poaching a fowl to eat, or even, in desperate circumstances, a dog or cat. Even in this environment, as alien as a Martian landscape to her, she could avoid detection merely by leaning quietly into a fence or lamppost
By smell as much as by sight or hearing, she knew she was now approaching the river. She turned abruptly toward it, down a darkly shadowed side street. There were few gas lamps here, but they weren't needed; her night vision was as sharp as any nocturnal animal's.
The damp mist lifted a few feet ahead under a lonely gas jet to reveal a short, straight block of warehouses trailing to a lone pier. She muttered a short invocation, looking quickly down at the swaddled bundle she held, and moved on.
There was a sound up ahead. Instinctively, she pressed the tiny bundle closer to her breast, leaning back into the shadows.
A sailor came out of a side street close by, obviously drunk and cursing loudly. Taemon peered out to see him stagger noisily to the end of the quay and pass onto the ship moored there. A minute passed of muffled voices and banging sounds, and then there was silence once again.
She moved out of the shadows and toward the ship, crouching at the head of the dock. There was no sound of movement from the vessel. The only sounds were the dull lap of water against its side and now and again the mournful bleat of a foghorn far off at the mouth of the harbor.
She straightened and, a moment later, with catlike movements, was on board.
Low voices reached her ears now: the sound of two men discussing something in sleepy voices toward the bow. She moved aft away from them, toward the cargo bay.
The hold was barred and locked. Taemon Gaye cursed silently and knelt down before it. She laid her bundle on the deck beside her.
She uttered the ancient words in a chant, breathing them out quickly. There was a low splintering sound, then another, and the panel holding the iron lock fell away, down into the darkness. The wooden bar across the doorway slid smoothly back and fell off with a low thud to one side.
Taemon Gaye lifted her parcel once more.
She crept quickly down, closing the door above her. As she descended she muttered the chant once more and heard the bar moving back into place above her. The lock she could do nothing about, and she hoped they would merely replace it rather than look for causes.
The belly of the ship was nearly full with wooden crates. Taemon brought her face close to one and in the dim light made out the legend stenciled on it in whitewash: GLASGOW TO NEW YORK. A thin smile crossed her lips and then abruptly disappeared as a dull thump sounded above her.
A single voice was cursing. It was the sailor she had seen board the ship before. He had pulled back the hold door and was examining the missing lock. After a moment he exclaimed loudly, and then Taemon heard him descend with a grunt down into the hold and caught a glimpse of his heavy boots negotiating the steps as she moved lithely away from him.
"I'll break your head, damn stowaway bastard," he bellowed loudly behind her. He was bumping into crates and boxes, the light from his lamp bouncing off the ceiling.
Taemon found herself cornered between two huge containers, but managed to squirrel herself between them and up behind onto a third and lower chest. She found herself in a snug and well-hidden compartment, staring sullenly out through the crack it afforded at the advancing glow of the sailor's lantern.
"Come out, I said!" he growled.
He turned suddenly and passed right in front of her, stopping momentarily to hold his lamp up before him and peer tentatively into her hiding place. She drew back and went unseen, and he passed, still roaring out oaths.
"I always catch stowaways," he said.
The bundle in her arms moved, making a low sound which Taemon wasn't able to quell.
"Ah!" the sailor cried, retreating back to her hiding spot. "What've we found, eh? Is this the goddamn stowaway?" He thrust the lantern into the crack and his bearded face in after it. "Let's have a look at ye."
There was nowhere for Taemon Gaye to retreat to. She looked out at him coolly, hiding her package against her body.
The sailor laughed in surprise. "What's this?" She could smell his strongly fouled breath. "What kind o' creature is this? A rabbit? Come out and let's 'ave a look at ye." He pushed his light in closer, squinting after it. "A tiny lassie?" He laughed again, a bellows sound. "Come out, little one; mayhap we can make some sort o' arrangement about your room and board." He snorted and gave another short laugh.
She sat still as stone.
"Come out now, I say."
Taemon Gaye spit out at him.
The sailor pulled back, howling with outrage.
"Shy, are we?" he said angrily. "All right then. I'm not shy myself. You've had your chance to be graceful wi' me." He put his lamp down and fumbled with something made of metal, which clanged dully against the lower deck when he dropped it. "Damn," he cursed, hefting it up again.
"All right, little one, let's 'ave a look at this, aye?"
It was a harpoon, long and wooden-handled, with a sickle-sharp blade on the end. He thrust it toward her, turning it in the light.
"Nice
, aye? Used this much, in my days as a boy whaler. Didn't only harpoon whales with it. Now let's be reasonable, lassie. Come out and let me have my way with ye, and nothing'll be said of your stowage. I'll even drop you food, now and again. Otherwise," he shrugged. "A dead stowaway as well as a live one—'tis all the same to those abovedecks."
He turned the razor-sharp blade over and thrust it in at her playfully.
Taemon Gaye spat out at him again.
"All right," he said, his eyes becoming hard and bright. "I'll drag ye out like a piked fish then."
He pulled the harpoon back, preparing the thrust.
Taemon Gaye closed her eyes and muttered out the ancient chant once more.
There was a splitting sound above her.
"What's this then?" the sailor exclaimed, lowering his weapon slightly and lifting his light to try to see what had made the sound.
There was a flit like an arrow shot from a bow and the sailor staggered back. He threw his hands to his face, dropping his harpoon loudly on the hull.
"Holy God," he half screamed, half gasped.
There was another flit, and with a dull squishing sound something lodged itself deep in his throat. This one he was able to pull out, and he saw in the weak, fading light a thick sliver of wood about eight inches long, covered with his own blood.
He groaned, dropping to the deck.
There was one more flitting sound, a rattling cry from the sailor, and then silence.
Taemon Gaye opened her eyes and shifted her position, moving herself out slightly from the back of her cubbyhole. A loud sigh came from the bundle, and she rocked it slightly, soothing it.
With another utterance from her thin lips the sailor's harpoon flew up and over her, back into the unreachable parts of the ship's hull. Crates moved about the floor in front of her, covering the body of the dead man and making it impossible for anyone to reach it without clearing the entire hold.
With a few more movements she made a relatively warm and comfortable area, also inaccessible. Splintering open a few crates, she found one filled with tins of shortbread and another with barrels of ale. These would easily last until the end of the voyage. In another she discovered a shipment of blankets.
The bundle in her arms began to whimper.
She peeled back the white linen in which it was swaddled, moving the delicate gold crown from the tiny figure and placing it on the deck. She rearranged the cloth around the baby, rocking gently back and forth. Tiny as a mouse, it looked up at her drowsily, then closed its bead-black eyes once more and slept.
Just after dawn there was commotion around the door to the cargo hold. There was shouting, and boots descended. Taemon Gaye held the child close to her breast, muffling any cries. The disturbance persisted for a few minutes, then abruptly ceased. The door to the hold was closed again and bolted.
Not too long afterward there was the nearly imperceptible feeling of forward movement.
Taemon Gaye smiled once more, putting the baby down in a swaddle of blankets. She lay down beside it, reaching out her delicate hand to touch the child's head.
"Sleep tight, my Queen," she whispered, the motion of the ship rocking them both toward slumber. "Sleep tight."
CAMPBELL WOOD,
NEW YORK
SIXTY YEARS LATER
1
Phillie McAllister had to see things burn. He had to see blue-orange flame lick at and then magically consume things. There came an insistent, gnawing itch in his fingers whenever he witnessed fire—the dreamlike blue core of a lit stove burner, the bright head of a struck match in the dark, the colossal hell-heat of a burning house or a log in a bonfire.
He knew that not everyone had this special need, just as he knew that much of what he did with this rare love of his was not acceptable to those around him. Some of it, he knew, was not legal. But when that insistent pulse came into his hands, that twitch, that cold, dull spot that needed warming, there was only one way to make the need go away. There was only one way to bring the warmth to his fingers and mind.
He had to hide this love from everyone, even his friends. He knew what they thought of burning things. He knew there must be others who did it, wanted it, had to do it; he had reconciled himself to the fact that it must be one of those things that everybody did but nobody admitted. Once, a year ago on his twelfth birthday, he had tried to tell one of his few friends about it, in a hesitating, embarrassed sort of way, just to ease the loneliness of living with the need alone. But he had gotten that "You're not supposed to talk about it" look. The kid actually went beyond that look, and Phillie was deadly afraid for a moment that he would tell somebody about it. But Phillie was able to make him forget the whole thing by pretending that he was only joking. He'd never told anyone about it after that.
Phillie the firebug, his friend had called him the next day, still thinking it had been a joke. The kid had laughed, and Phillie had laughed along with him. But it was no joke.
The itch was in his fingers now.
He stood fingering a pack of store matches. This was the second time he'd ignored the warnings everyone knew, and passed the yellowing No Trespassing signs tacked to the trees by the road and on into the deep woods by the school. He'd never come at night before. The first time, he'll been nervous as hell and ran when he thought he heard someone coming close. But nothing had happened to him.
Phillie felt his fingers slip the match cover over its lip. He began to stroke the rows of matches. To see fire in the dark. His fingertips moved upward, over the tiny rough bulges of the match heads.
His breath came faster.
In his mind, he began to fantasize about a huge flameout—the kind of thing he hardly ever let himself think of outside his dreams. Flames, ruby red, thundered like a close-passing train, pushed four, five, six stories into the air, snapping hungrily at the atmosphere. He saw this almighty fire sucking all of the oxygen right out of the air—building so fierce and tall and frightening that every molecule of 02 was eaten alive. He saw everyone he knew—his mother, the men she hung around with all the time, all of the girls in school, his stupid-idiot English teacher, McGreary, the cop Ramirez, the ones who warned about the woods—all flopping around on the ground like dry fish, gasping for breath that wasn't there. And he saw himself towering over them all, walking triumphantly through the flames unscathed, at one with the fire, growing as the flames grew, smiling and bending down and whispering, Screw you all.
"Screw you all," he said out loud, in a sort of gasp. He was sweating now. He wasn't a freak like they said in school (was that kid really just kidding when he said "Phillie the firebug'?), and he wasn't the weird little monster his mother said he was. He'd heard her say that about him, to one of the jerky men that were always coming home with her, one after another, a different one every week or two. They hung around the house like flies. The place was always a mess; she never cleaned up. She spent most of her time at one of the bars, drinking beer until she couldn't see anymore and then coming home with one of the jackasses she picked up, banging things around when she came in, stumbling and laughing, groping her way to the bedroom while trying to take her coat off. Or her dress off. Sometimes they didn't make it to the bedroom, and he could hear them grunting like pigs on the living room couch. One time he looked in and saw his mother and a bartender on the floor, sweating and pulling at each other. It was after one of these times that he heard his mother, after lighting a cigarette and sucking in a breath, tell one of her bar friends about him. She was still drunk, but her head had cleared. "He's a weird little monster," she'd said, and Phillie could have sworn he heard her shiver after she said it.
Screw you all, you can't make me stay away from the woods
He was rubbing at the matches insistently now. Without knowing what he was doing he had peeled up a single match and was pulling at it. He didn't know or care why, but this was better, much better, than the magazines his mother's men left lying around. His mouth was dry. He was fingering the head of the match, feeling
its tiny roughness. Suddenly it tore free and he had the matchbook out in the open and was fumbling it closed. In the strong moonlight his eye caught but didn't register the "Learn to Drive!" blurb on the inside flap.
Almost trembling, he pulled the match across the striker and it burst into flame. He tossed it expertly away from him with one smooth motion.
He was transfixed now, like a hypnotized cobra. A small fire instantly sprang up in the dry brush. It crawled and spread and the smell of wood smoke hit Phillie's nostrils.
He clapped his hands spontaneously and stepped back.
The flames mounted, licking hungrily up a small pine.
Suddenly the sky above him seemed to darken perceptibly, and the trees around Phillie thickened. It was all in one movement, as if someone had thrown a switch. He looked up and couldn't see the moon anymore, or any stars. The sky was now completely covered by tree branches and leaves. There was a soft rustling sound, wind yet not wind, and the fire before Phillie suddenly diminished and then snuffed out in a breath of dry smoke before his eyes.
Phillie spun around and had the unmistakable feeling that someone was now watching him. A whimper escaped his throat. The hairs on the back of his neck and on his arms stood up straight. He thrust the matchbook back into his trouser pocket and began to move away toward the road, peering into the almost complete darkness as he did so. The trees before him were barely outlined in the velvet blackness. This whole thing was like a dream. He expected Ramirez the cop, or his mother, or his English teacher, McGreary, or the gym teacher who had caught him with matches in the bathroom and made him do things to keep quiet about it, to suddenly materialize before him. He couldn't shake that feeling of being watched; it was all around him, it was almost something he could reach out and touch.
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